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Police say Seminole Heights rape suspect confesses

Staff photo by PETER MASA

Rape suspect Joseph Frye was arrested at the Mayflower Motel, 7519 N. Florida Avenue, just before 11 a.m.

By CHIP OSOWSKI | News Channel 8
and JOSH POLTILOVE | The Tampa Tribune
and RAY REYES | The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 3, 2009

Updated: 09/03/2009 05:27 pm

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Joseph Frye

Joseph Lee Frye has confessed this afternoon to breaking into an elderly woman's Seminole Heights home, raping her and stealing cash and jewelry, Tampa police say.

He showed no remorse when he was making his statements to investigators, police spokeswoman Andrea Davis said.

An extensive manhunt for Frye, 49, ended at 10:52 a.m. today after a tip led police to the Mayflower Motel on Florida Avenue where he had been staying for nearly a week.

Frye was released from prison on Aug. 1. Frye told detectives the Florida Department of Corrections gave him $100 when he was released and suggested he live at a motel on East Hillsborough Avenue, Davis said.

He learned the motel charged $45 a night and left, living on the streets until he checked in at the Mayflower Motel on Friday, Davis said. The Mayflower charges $30 a night. Frye told detectives that a homeless person checked him into the motel under a false name and that he has been hiding out at the hotel until he was arrested today.

Police are trying to piece together a timeline of Frye's activities since Friday.

His arrest has allayed the fears of Seminole Heights residents.

"The neighborhood is extremely relieved," said Shawn Hicks, who is in charge of crime awareness for the Old Seminole Heights Neighborhood Association. "Especially the elderly in the neighborhood."

Tampa police say Frye overpowered the elderly woman on Friday, raped her in the bedroom of her Seminole Heights home and fled with her gun, cash and jewelry. DNA evidence from the scene linked Frye to the crime, Assistant Police Chief Jane Castor said.

"I think that everyone in the city of Tampa can breathe a little easier knowing that he's going to be behind bars and he's not going to get out again," Castor said.

Police say a man called 911 and said Frye was staying at the motel. Police would not release his name.
Officers arrived on scene today and determined Frye, a Tampa native, was staying in Room 15. They got a pass key for his door. As they started entering the room, Frye had his hand on the doorknob, Castor said. They pushed the door in and Frye gave up.

Police recovered a .357-caliber magnum and other property they say Frye stole from a rape victim, who is in her 70s.

"I'm very relieved," Frye's half-sister Linda said today during a phone interview after his arrest. The Tampa Tribune is not releasing her last name. "I'm very happy about it, that he's off the streets. No more victims. I'm just sorry for the victims and for my brother. How he wound up like this, I don't understand."

More than 30 officers spent Wednesday morning searching for Frye under a bridge at Hillsborough Avenue – based on information from a potential witness and an officer who saw someone running when he arrived on scene. Castor said today that police still aren't sure Frye had been there.

Mayflower Motel employee Jan Lockwood said staffers don't require identification when people sign in.
"As long as you have money, you can stay in a room," she said.

Castor said it's not immediately clear whether Frye had been staying at the motel under an assumed name.

Isabel Delerme, 67, who lives across the street from the motel, said she thought she saw a man matching the description of Frye on Wednesday at the St. George Foodmart next to the motel.

Delerme was there to buy groceries and saw the man buy beer and leave. When she saw the news later, she thought the man she had seen was Frye, but she didn't call police.

"I was scared," she said. "I didn't know he was going to be in the area."

Ines Osorio, 36, whose mother lives in the same apartment complex as Delerme, said she was worried about her mother when she heard about the manhunt for Frye.

"We got another animal off the streets," she said after Frye's arrest. "It's too close to home. It's crazy out here. This world … I don't know what it's coming to."

Frye told his half-sister over the years that he wants to do the right thing, and he has written her "beautiful poems" about nature and mountains and God – spiritual things.

But he always has had a certain sadness, and "he was sweet, but he had a problem – emotional or mental, however you say it," said Linda, 58.

She hasn't spoken to Frye in years. She received letters from him in recent months asking if he could stay with her, but she declined. She has a family, and she was concerned about his mental state and how he previously hadn't wanted to help with household work in exchange for her providing him shelter.

She and her brother were separated for chunks of childhood, spending time in foster homes, but she said that at other points, she practically raised him.

"We had parents that just [weren't] capable of being parents, and the drinkin' and the cussin' and the fussin', the problems with no food on the table a lot of times," she said.

Frye was convicted of rape after a 1985 incident in which he forced his way into a home at gunpoint and raped a woman.

Police also investigated an accusation that he raped a woman in 2002, but charges in that case weren't filed because there was not enough evidence and the woman didn't want to press charges.

After serving time behind bars for the 1985 offense and a subsequent probation violation, Frye was freed again Aug. 1.

Frye had no visitors when he was last in prison from May 2004 until this August, Florida Department of Corrections spokeswoman Gretl Plessinger said. Frye has spent half his life in prison and has an extensive disciplinary report dating to 1978, records show.

While behind bars Frye has been found in possession of weapons and drugs, has threatened detention officers or other prisoners, and has been disciplined for fighting, drinking alcohol and stealing, according to corrections records.

Under today's laws, Frye would still be in prison. But under court guidelines in effect when he was convicted of rape in the 1980s, he was released after serving only half of his 28-year sentence. The same arcane laws applied for Frye after he violated his probation on the underlying rape conviction.

But the outdated laws won't apply this time – if Frye is convicted in the Aug. 28 rape charge.

"We understand that he has been released early from prison on other offenses, and we feel very confident that that won't happen in this situation," Castor said. "We have a very good case on him."

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